5/12/2003 @ 12:00AM

The Paulson Estate Battle

The rich are different from you and me. They have more horses.

It’s probably fair to say that children of first wives rarely have the best of relations with third wives, especially when it’s time to divvy up a $100 million estate. So it was with the estate of
Allen Paulson
, founder of Gulfstream, who died in July 2000 leaving, among other assets, 225 horses, a San Diego country club and the River Palms Casino in Laughlin, Nev.

The squabbling started soon after.
Madeleine Paulson
, the third wife, complained to a California superior court that
Michael Paulson
, 47, the youngest of Allen’s three sons and a trustee, wasn’t honoring terms of the estate. He refused, for instance, to sell the horses promptly. He turned down multimillion-dollar offers for StarTac, she claimed, because he wanted to see the horse win the Kentucky Derby under his father’s colors.

Then there were the small things he did just to upset her, she said, like allowing her health insurance to lapse and revoking her membership to the exclusive Del Mar Country Club near San Diego, which her late husband owned through a trust. He even, she complained, took away her parking spot near the clubhouse.

Michael denies these claims–but made some nasty allegations of his own. He said Madeleine hid art and furniture in an illegally erected 8,000-square-foot warehouse at her home overlooking the seventh green at the Del Mar Country Club. He claimed she bought jewelry and put a deposit on a Rolls-Royce as her husband lay dying.

Reason finally prevailed and a settlement was reached in late March. Michael kept a slew of horses, including Azeri, the 2002 Eclipse Horse of the Year, and Madeleine received assets including the prestigious Del Mar Country Club. Madeleine has this to say about the fight: “I wish I hadn’t wasted 32 months. That’s such valuable time taken away from one’s life.”